O’Malley (Sprints it Out) VERSUS Lowe – April 14, 2007

On a very, very rainy day this past weekend, I met with Anthony “Ricky” Lowe for breakfast as monsoon-like rains pounded the tarmac outside the café and winds cancelled the Spring Series in Central Park that morning. Bob Marley played on the café’s iPod and I took this to be a good omen.

Lowe is a cat 2 racer with the Princeton Review team and an ex-Visit Britain race team member. He was born in Jamaica in 1975 and arrived in the U.S. when he was eight. He is married with two children, both boys, ages eight and twelve.

His eight year old, Anthony Junior is a miracle baby and was so small at birth, he fit into the palm of the nurse’s hand!

He won Mengoni in 2005 and many fellow racers believe his legs are bigger than their torsos, me included. Lowe joined the U.S. Army when he was just seventeen and was a Green Beret from aged 19 to 24, after which he returned to college and attended Brooklyn College where he received an undergraduate degree, majoring in mathematics, with a minor in physics.

After completing a Masters in mathematics, he took a job as an accountant, CPA, at Kamco Supply Co. based in Brooklyn.

As the rain, incessantly poured forth, almost biblically, we shared cycling tales, life stories and experiences from our respective existences. Six hours later I managed to attempt to write this interview. Bob Marley was still singing.

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O’M: What got you into racing bikes? And who influenced you to race in the first place?

ARL: I used to play semi-pro football for a local New York team, The Renegades. I got injured and after the injuries I decided I needed to do something to stay fit. So I bought a Pacific mountain bike at Toys-R-Us for $250. I had to hear it [spending money on a bike] from my wife big time. That was back in 2000.

O’M: What race do you regard as your greatest achievement?

@##=#<6,C>@##=# Sprinting For Maltese Win

ARL: Lou Maltese 2004. The time I did the race, I had no sleep whatsoever. I spent the entire Friday night in emergency room at the hospital with my son. He has had 16 surgeries in his eight years on this earth. That night they had to revise the shunt in his head, tubing through the skull to the brain ventricles, to make sure everything was at the right pressure. He has two types of shunts, programmable shunt and a VP shunt. A needle is put into a reservoir that’s attached to the shunt to extract fluid for testing the pressure in the ventricles. My son had to have emergency surgery to relieve fluid that was congregating on his tiny brain. Michelle, my wife, told me to go do the race. About four in the morning I left the hospital, took an hour to do everything [bike related stuff], another half hour to get to the race and I arrived just at six for the start.

O’M: What motivates you when training and sprinting in a race?

ARL: Training for fitness, to stay fit and to do well. Sprinting and racing is all about my son. I have a photo of him taped to my handlebars, in the middle at the stem.

O’M: Some say your legs together (and even separate) are thicker than other racer’s torsos. Do you agree?

ARL: [Laughing] Yeah I agree, I get that all the time.

O’M: You have a child, Anthony Junior who is wheelchair bound. How has he changed your perspective on life?

ARL: He showed me how vulnerable we all are, also, how much we all take for granted. At birth he weighed just one pound and eleven ounces, the size of a regular stapler. I could hold him in the palm of my hand. The fact that you have a child that is healthy is a gift, a great gift.

O’M: As a Green Beret you must have found yourself in some dangerous situations?

ARL: That’s all we were in, yes, dangerous situations. Life and death situations and there have been deaths. It’s a brotherhood and I’ll just leave it at that!

@##=#<7,L>@##=# Podium Maltese, 2004

O’M: How were you affected by your time in the Green Berets?

ARL: When I got out life changed a lot. I found myself getting dressed in the dark, without even realizing it. I was so conditioned when asleep, that mentally and physically, I’d wake up simply when my mother walked into the room. When I came back home, the adjustment was hard, trying to adapt to normal society. I’m still not over it, you never get over what you’ve seen, friends that died during combat, friends still there [Iraq etc.] that talk to you.

O’M: How was it coming to the U.S. as an eight year old kid and growing up in Brooklyn? Attending school here in New York?

ARL: Sequentially my migration to the U.S. involved coming here at eight and then going to grammar and junior high.

I remember the first shocker was hearing the “N” word in the locker room at school. There were some black kids conversing in a friendly manner. I was eight years old. I didn’t confront them. I had known that word, but never used it. I thought if you used that word, apparently you’re in feud with the other guy. But there was no animosity between them, they were embracing each other.

On the day of my high school graduation I cried! I didn’t know my next move. My mother didn’t have the money. I didn’t want to get a dead-end job somewhere. My father had instilled in me that true success was to work for your self. He’d never worked a day in his life for anyone else. Some recruiters came to Boys and Girls High School in Brooklyn and handed me a card. I stuffed it in my pocket and forgot about it. And then one day I called them up, just turned 17. So I went into the military because I couldn’t afford to go to college. That was May 14th, fourteen years ago.

O’M: You joined so young?

ARL: My mother had to sign for me. Anyway, when I was at school, math was my worst subject. The inner city school system was poor on math and science. In Jamaica the system of education is good right across the board.

@##=#<5,L>@##=# Interviewing Mengoni Jersey Winner, 2005

O’M: Do you travel back to Jamaica regularly? Do you have family in Jamaica?

ARL: Yes I’ve been back when my father passed away, 1998. Yes over 200 relatives. There are 14 parishes in Jamaica, cousins in them all. You see my grandfather, mother’s father, had 22 kids. His first wife bore him 16 kids, she died and he remarried. My mother was one of the twenty-two. He was a farmer and owned close to 200 acres, more than three times the area of Central Park. He was a coffee farmer, Blue Mountain coffee famous from Jamaica. My father owned buses and used to ferry tourists all over Jamaica from place to place. When he died it was a big blow. We talked all the time. He lived in Jamaica, didn’t like America, the food the culture all of it. He was a Rastafarian actually.

O’M: How, if at all, has Jamaican culture influenced your perspective on life and racing?

ARL: As far as struggle is concerned the system is corrupt there and poor families have no opportunities. For me having an opportunity to compete, to work makes me want to push even harder. Life is so hard there.

O’M: Who influenced you in sports as a kid growing up in Jamaica and later in the U.S.?

ARL: Pele in soccer. Soccer is huge in Jamaica and Michael Jordan.

O’M: How about Major Taylor? Muhammad Ali? I just finished reading his biography and when I was a waiter I served him coffee, back in 1998, incredible.

ARL: Wasn’t much into boxing when I was young. Now I watch it all the time ESPN Classic. I wasn’t following cycling back then, but in football, Emmet Smith who played for the Dallas Cowboys, probably got to about 5 or 6 Super Bowls.

O’M: Is there a similarity between the Jamaicans and Irish?

ARL: I don’t know that many Irish, but the one’s I’ve encountered are extremely nice. But when Jamaicans come here or are born here they adopt a different kind of attitude, so I don’t think there’s a similarity.

@##=#<2,L>@##=# Spring Series, In the Pack, April 8th 2007

O’M: How do you make time for training?

ARL: Train when I can. My routine revolves around my son. After work I go home to watch Family Feud and Everybody Loves Raymond, my son’s favorite shows. At the commercials he hands me the remote, points to the television gets me to change the channel, doesn’t understand where the show went to.

O’M: What teams do you deem the strongest this season, locally?

ARL: Empire without a doubt. Bandit Racing are a strong bunch of guys. Jeff King was saying on the site [Bandit racing site] they are a small group of guys who do NOT take themselves too serious. His team has chemistry. Their agenda is to go to local races and do well, have a bunch of fun with friends. The commitment of his team to him and their sacrifice to him as a sprinter is great.

O’M: : Do you think American society caters adequately for special needs kids and adults?

ARL: Yes I think it does. I remember speaking to an organization about after school programs. They said ‘we don’t have the accommodations for your son, but you should write a letter anyway and get as many parents to do the same, that will prompt a change for those needs.’ I did just that and the following year they added a program.

@##=#<3,C>@##=# Winner, Hands in Air, Mengoni 2005

O’M: When you came here what kinds of jobs did you do?

ARL: When I was full time in college, Brooklyn College, I was taking 14 credits and at four in the morning I was getting up to deliver the New York Times in Crown Heights. At five I was at the delivery station and delivered the papers until seven-thirty. Classes started at 8:20a.m.went to 2:15 in the afternoon. From three in the day until eleven at night I worked in customer service, Shoreway Air Express. I had to quit the job at Shoreway because my son required my time and after I was told by my then boss I had only two weeks vacation left, I told him I’d be needing more, he said you can’t have anymore, I told him to go fuck himself and quit. I was a stay at home “Mom”/Dad for one year looking after my son.

O’M: How has your wife Michelle influenced your life?

ARL: In every way. When I was in the military she wrote me a letter, EVERY day. I have a military duffel bag; it’s huge, stuffed with letters in my basement. All of them hers!

O’M: Before he came out of hospital he nearly died right?

ARL:: The first day he came home from hospital the incubator [at the hospital] was empty. My wife thought he’s passed away. But he’d already been taken home. She was so used to going to the hospital; she went the day he’d been taken home. There was a benchmark in our life that we will never forget. The doctors and the Ethics Committee called us into a room and told us we had the choice to sign what’s called a DNR and a DNI.

O’M: These are what exactly?

ARL: Documents to sign by the parent should things go wrong. ‘Do Not Resuscitate’ and ‘Do Not Intibate’. They told us that he wouldn’t survive and I looked at the doctors, numbed. Then I asked – “Will he know love? If he looks at me and knows I’m his dad, will he know this?” They said, “Maybe”. I asked, “Will he feel that I love him? I don’t care if he walks or talks, as long as he knows love”, and then I said, “We won’t be signing any DNR or DNI!

O’M: Is there any particular doctor that helped your son above and beyond?

ARL:Yes, Dr. Leblanc is responsible for my son’s life. He got him breathing, got his heart rate going. He said, “Your son is in a bad state, won’t live for more than 24 hours, if he does live, I will do all I can to make sure he survives”. I still see him eight years later, he’s my son’s godfather! When we were at the hospital he wasn’t sucking the milk from the tiny bottle, unable to be fed orally. We [wife Michelle] sat there depressed. After awhile I took a napkin and held him in my palm. I soaked the napkin in milk and put it in his mouth. I tried to stimulate his taste buds with the absorbed milk and squeezed it in his tiny mouth and then… he moved his lips as if to recognize the taste! He swallowed two droplets! Just one CC. It took him two months to drink a syringe of milk. After that the nurse saw this and said it was enough to postpone surgery. A miracle!

O’M: Do you pay close attention to your own diet?

ARL:Yes I did body building when I was younger after the Green Berets. I haven’t been to a gym in seven years. I eat lots and lots of fruits, apples, oranges, mangoes and pasta. I stay away from fried foods or any artificial drinks. I do use Cytomax. Roger [Friedman] is my nutritionist. I eat a lot of vegetables. I eat seafood too, sushi and chicken and small portions of red meat. In Jamaica we have special stuffed fish that I get here too, Red snapper stuffed with collard greens or as we call it in Jamaica, calaloo, it’s like cauliflower to broccoli. I put to excelsior crackers inside and okra. The juice from the okra is absorbed in the crackers and they swell up like dumplings. Also, Kingfish, Doctor fish, a kind of tropical fish. Steamed Doctor fish is the best! Fifty percent of the time I eat sardines for breakfast and an egg white omelet!

O’M: Do you drink beer?

ARL: The night before a race, one Guinness religiously. My social life is centered around my son, researching his condition, so I don’t do much drinking in bars.

O’M: What about music?

ARL: My wife bought me the entire Bob Marley collection, 15 CDs, his speeches, early recordings. He sings about things that still matter, still happening today.

O’M: Anything in particular irritate you about other cyclists?

ARL: Yes, riders feeing the need to be rude to one another. People who don’t race are friendlier towards one another it seems to me.

O’M: What’s the fastest you ever sprinted at? Top wattage?

ARL: Never really took note, not a numbers guy. But I did sprint in a race at 1823 watts once. Even Sherry [Mike] said to me when I did a test, ‘according to these numbers, you SHOULDN’T be winning races’. We both laughed of course.

O’M: : On a totally different subject. Will the U.S. win the Iraq campaign?

@##=#<4,L>@##=# “Lowe” Wattage, Mengoni, 2005

ARL: No! Whatever change they make will be a temporary one.

O’M: Isn’t bike racing a kind of war? And isn’t morale a more important weapon than hardware?

ARL: Morale is the key. Hardware can go only so far. Take a soldier fighting on a morale basis; he’ll push himself above and beyond the norm. He will win.

O’M: And bike racing needs morale?

ARL: Absolutely! Basically equipment is not all of it. There are guys out there with less expensive equipment, mediocre stuff, but will do better with that stuff. They ride with mental strength.

O’M: Finally, how did mathematics become so important to you?

ARL: I hated math in high school. I sucked at it. When I went to college, I even had to take a remedial course in it. But I refused to be beaten by the subject I didn’t understand. There were times I’d wake up in the middle of the night and run to my table and fix the problem I had been working on all night. The Masters wasn’t about the piece of paper or a degree; it was about winning a war, conquering something that had conquered me for years.

@##=#<1,L>@##=# Anthony Senior and Junior

O’M: Like your son’s condition?

ARL:Yes I have a folder of research on my desk top that is massive, full of information about my son’s health and how I can better understand him and help him.

O’M: Ricky, thanks again for your time.

ARL: Thank you and good luck in the season.